Trojan Boat Forum

Good morning, just looked at a boat with these drives and when shifting from n-d and n-r there is quite a loud metallic clunk on both sides......one side has a pile of grease on the hull under packing gland and both the shaft glands at the hull are leaking (right now the proper name for that escapes me)

Anyway those are the symptoms, so what do you guys think, diagnosis anyone.....I am walking from this one, good or bad decision ??

Without hearing the clunk its hard to say . Some clunk maybe normal , more so with a v-drive then straight shafts . More drive line parts = more play = more clunk . Worn parts gears/ujoints will add to this . To high of a idle will add to this

I had walter v drives in my carver. Check the oil in them (they take straight 30 wt oil). You should have what is called a jack staft on that boat, which is a shaft between the transmission and the vdrive with a ujoint between, generally over the stuffing box (i.e. gland). If it was greased recently, some grease may spin off and that's what its in the bilge. A hydrolic trannmssion should really clunk unless the idle is too high.

My experience with boats is ...go with your gut. Your gut doesn't lie. If it doesn't feel right, walk away. There are plenty of boats out there. It's a large purcahse so you should feel good about it.

Are you sure it's grease under the packing gland and not wax? If it's wax, it tells me that they had it tightened too much at one time and heated up the gland such that the wax (if it's wax impregnated packing) oozed out of the packing material. If they had to tighten it that much to stop a leak, it was either overdue for packing replacement or it has an alignment issue or worse which could be a whole other set of possibilities.

Check the idle rpm, too high and she will clunk into gear. The Walters also chatter if idle is too low. Setting the rpm higher than spec is an old trick to mask other runability issues so make sure the idle is set to spec so you are getting a true picture of how she really runs at the proper idle setting. Check the oil in the drives, it should be clean. Even if it's clean, smell it, it should not smell burnt. What oil is in the drives; clear, green, or red ATF? Do you see or feel any oil under or on the bottom of the drives? Any oil leaking from the input or output seal areas? Sometimes U-joints are used with these, if they are sloppy, they will be noisy and should be replaced before they fly apart.

Better do some further investigating here as the worst case scenarios for the above items could be costly.

I remember now....shaft logs.....anyway after watching the blue smoke on start up then hearing and feeling what seemed like a couple of .050" shims were missing I got that gut feeling and stopped right there.

Still would like to know about the rv drives though,I had a boat with rv drives before but were small blocks and I do not remember any odd noises coming from them in the time we owned it.Just saw your post Big d, yup it was grease and there did not seem to be any leakage from the seals but did not check the fluid after the other stuff and the shaft logs leaking at the hull joint, I kind gave up, could feel the dollar signs coming for me.....would be a great boat if the price was right to repower and rebuild the drives.....oh well on to the next, funny thing our f32 has been better than everything we have seen so far.

Hi Mike,

I'm running a big block into Walter's with no noticeable clunking of any sort. As you know, Big D and Prowler no doubt represent the best advice on these kinds of issues. Your decision to move on with your search, is prob a smart one imo.

Rick

rickalan35 wrote:Hi Mike,

I'm running a big block into Walter's with no noticeable clunking of any sort. As you know, Big D and Prowler no doubt represent the best advice on these kinds of issues. Your decision to move on with your search, is prob a smart one imo.

Rick

Thanks Rick, I hear on those two fellas...good to hear your drives don't bang like that...yea had that no way out feeling of doom..LOL

Hey Mike, I have Walter V-drives in "Seabuscuit" and they do not clunk as you describe. With the grease you speak of It may be the CV joints are worn out and this is the clunk noise you hear. The owner may have pumped grease into them in hopes of quieting them down. (would also explain the grease all over) What kind of boat was it? Has your "Sea Baby" deal firmed up? Getting any boating In?